Friday 6th November

Psalm 4 vs 6 - 7   

6 Many, LORD, are asking, ‘Who will bring us prosperity? Let the light of your face shine on us. 7 Fill my heart with joy when their grain and new wine abound.”

Psalm 4 is another psalm of David’s. It is a lament over his own sins and the sins of the people. It is a call for them to turn from their rebellious ways. 
The verses above could be said of our days when people ask “how long must we endure this wretched virus?” Well, perhaps it is time for us to look and think carefully and then to consider if and how we have offended God, if there are patterns of behaviour and ways of life we should confess and turn from them as we turn instead to Jesus. That is no less true of God people than it is of anyone. Perhaps it’s time for us to confess our sins and failures seek him in a new way. Then we will discover that joy is not in having and spending, a life of pleasure as we think but is to be found in the Lord who satisfies every desire. Perhaps the issue is that we do not have the right desires in the first place and we are looking in the wrong places and to the wrong things for fulfilment and peace.

True joy is from God, it is the fruit the Holy Spirit produces in our lives. Peter in his first letter writes this of those who trust in and follow Jesus; it is the outworking of our faith. “Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy,